


A Scarred Sky Shines

by aurora_australis



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Miss Fisher's Whumptober Challenge, Pillow Talk, Scars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 06:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20944163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurora_australis/pseuds/aurora_australis
Summary: “I have scars,” she’d said, stilling his hands the first time he’d moved to undress her. She wasn’t ashamed of them, and she never apologized for them, but he was a policeman, and he knew her history, and he would determine all their origins soon enough.Part of MFMM's Whumptober Fanfic Challenge.





	A Scarred Sky Shines

**Author's Note:**

> My second contribution to the MFMM's Whumptober Fanfic Challenge.
> 
> The prompt for this story is “Scars.”
> 
> Many many thanks to bethanyactually for the beta read!

“I have scars,” she’d said, stilling his hands the first time he’d moved to undress her. She wasn’t ashamed of them, and she never apologized for them, but he was a policeman, and he knew her history, and he would determine all their origins soon enough. And so, she had decided, it would be better to warn him in advance. Unexpected anger at a man long dead, a war long over, a life lived to the hilt, could easily kill the mood.

He had looked at her, quiet for a moment, before continuing in his task. “So do I,” he’d said, his gaze now singularly focused on the buttons of her blouse. “And I’ll make you a deal - I’ll kiss yours, if you kiss mine.”

And that, Phryne had thought, had been that. 

Except it wasn’t. 

He did keep his promise, kissing each of her scars in turn that first time they’d made love, as well as many of the times that followed. But he also seemed… preoccupied with them, after. Continually. Always touching one and then the next as together he and she calmed, cooled, collected. 

And it was beginning to grate. 

She wanted to say something. She was _going_ to say something. Something that set Jack Robinson straight, that reminded him that she was more than her scars, more than her past. That she didn’t need rescuing, and, if for some reason she did, she would bloody well do it herself.

So the next time he did it, moving his fingers in the aftermath of their lovemaking from a burn on her hip to a knife wound on her thigh, she once again paused his hands.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she told him, her voice quiet but steady.

Jack paused. "Do what?" he asked after a moment, his enunciation clipped and calm. It could have been an honest question, but Jack was using his interrogation room voice, which immediately alerted her to his real objective - he wanted to determine how much she knew before confirming or denying anything himself. It was an old but effective trick.

Too bad she was a detective as well.

“You know damn well,” she said, and not quietly this time either. 

Jack looked down, a little embarrassed.

Well, that was unexpected.

Still.

She took a breath and carried on. “Look, Jack, I realize that the implications can be upsetting, but I don’t like the way you focus on my scars.”

His gaze narrowed slightly, but he didn’t say anything, waiting for her to continue, counting on her need to fill the silence. Another interrogation tactic, and damn it all, this one worked. 

She sighed, then filled the silence.

“It makes me feel like you see me differently,” she admitted. “Like you see these… reminders, and suddenly think I’m fragile or weak. And I’m not.” She shrugged and smiled tightly, trying to project abundant insouciance instead of mild insecurity. “Besides, there is much more interesting topography to explore if you’re so very keen to survey.”

Jack looked down again, then back up, and the adoration in his eyes when he did took her breath away.

“Of course you’re not weak,” he said, ignoring her quip completely and focusing instead on the parts of her speech that mattered most. He propped himself up on his elbow and tucked her hair behind her ear before continuing.

“I would never… I _could_ never think that. Phryne, you… you are the most formidable person I have ever met, and that’s not because you’ve never been knocked down. It’s because when you do, you get back up every single time, stronger than before. You, Miss Fisher, have a spine of solid steel that you forged yourself, and I’m not likely to forget that just because you couldn’t dodge every single projectile that was hurled your way.”

She smiled, wide and real this time, and dashed away a rogue and very annoying tear. At a loss for words for the first time in years, she decided to forgo speeches in the moment, and instead reached up to tug him down for a kiss that said everything she couldn’t. 

Pulling apart several delicious moments later, she cocked an eyebrow and tilted her head, the detective still on the case. “But then why…?” She trailed off, but he understood what she was asking, and to her surprise, he blushed. _Properly_ blushed. Well, that was intriguing.

“Jack?”

He sighed. “You’ll laugh,” he grumbled, which just added rocket fuel to Phryne’s already burning curiosity.

“I won’t,” she promised. And she wouldn’t, even if she had to bite her cheek all night to stop herself. But she also had to know, so she looked up at him with the widest eyes she could manage and blinked slowly. “Please?”

He wasn’t the only one who knew old but effective tricks. 

In response, Jack rolled his eyes and laid his head back down on the pillow in defeat. “Constellations,” he said, so quietly she almost didn’t hear him.

“Constellations? As in… constellations? Star patterns?”

“Mmmmm. I’ve been...” he sighed again, clearly embarrassed. “I’ve been creating my own. On you.”

Her eyebrows shot up past her fringe.

“What? Why?”

“I don’t really have a _reason_. It’s just… well, months ago, the very first time I saw your right shoulder, I happened to notice that the little cluster of freckles there looked like an arrow — ”

“Pointing down, I hope,” she interrupted with a wink and he fixed her with an unamused look.

“_And_ the first time we were… together, I realized that there is a similar pattern on your knee — ”

“Pointing up, I hope.”

“ — made up of several freckles, a beauty mark, and what looks to be the result of a bicycle accident.”

“How very observant of you, Inspector. Doesn’t explain your fascination with all the others.”

“Well, I kept on looking.” He waggled his eyebrows suggestively and she snorted.

“Obviously,” she said, hooking her leg over his and resting her hand on his chest.

“Obviously,” he agreed, languidly stroking her arm with his hand. “And I found a few more. That knife wound on your thigh forms part of a shield, whatever left that mark on your back looks a bit like a Murray cod, which I found highly appropriate. I, uh, named it Miss Fish.”

Phryne burst out laughing, breaking her promise entirely, but full of so much love for this man she simply couldn’t contain her joy. And Jack, bless him, understood that as well and smiled at her so fondly she had no choice but to kiss him once more.

“I find a new one every now and again,” he continued after she released him, “but mostly I just trace the ones I’ve already mapped.”

“Why?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“I don’t know,” he acknowledged. “I’ve always loved the stars and constellations. Ever since I was a boy. Patterns in the sky hold a special fascination for me.”

“Too bad you’re not a telescope,” she quipped. 

He sighed, deep and put upon. “Will you never let that go?”

“Doesn’t seem likely, Jack, but feel free to live in hope.”

Another sigh from him. She took pity and returned to her earlier line of inquiry.

“So what started this love affair? With the stars, I mean.”

“My father,” he replied. "He taught me all the constellations as a boy. When he died… when he died, I suppose remembering them was a way of remembering him.”

“That’s lovely,” Phryne said, absently running her hand over his chest. “I can’t say I ever had any special attachment to them myself, though I did notice the difference immediately when we first arrived in England.”

Under her hands, Jack’s body tensed for a moment before relaxing again. 

She lifted her head to look at him. “Jack?”

“I hated the stars in France,” he admitted. “The constellations were all wrong. They seemed to cut up the sky in unnatural ways, these deep wounds slashing the heavens without purpose. And the earth had already been slashed to death by the trenches, to destroy the firmament as well seemed... extra cruel.” He paused, then Phryne felt him take a deep, recalibrating breath. 

“But on the troopship back to Australia, I started to recognize them again, the stars and constellations. And it felt like… it felt like coming home.” His hand on her arm squeezed, just a fraction, pulling her a little closer to him. “It’s the same way I feel when I’m with you.”

And for the second time that night, Phryne found herself speechless.

Until she didn’t.

She closed her eyes and forced herself to be brave. She could do it; she had a spine of steel, after all. 

“I love you too, Jack.” As soon as the words left her lips, she heard his quick inhalation. She had never said them before. Technically, neither had he. Except, of course, he had, in all the ways that mattered. And, a moment later, he rolled her over and told her again.

Sometime later, when they were once again calming, cooling, collecting, she asked him a question.

“Do you have a favorite constellation?”

“In the sky or on you?”

“Let’s start with me,” she laughed. “As you damn well should.”

He chuckled. “I do, actually.” Jack pulled her up and over so that her right leg draped across his thighs. “If you take the shrapnel scar on my hip, and put it next to the one on your leg…” He reached out and clasped their fingers together, tracing the shape across their bodies with their joined hands. “It’s a swallow.”

Phryne smiled. It didn’t look anything like a swallow to her. If you squinted, and were very generous with your imagination, it _might_ resemble a spoonbill. But he looked so contented, she would happily call it a swallow forever.

She grinned up at him, and he beamed down at her, and Phryne thought maybe, just maybe, she might just get the chance.


End file.
